Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/59

 1868.] Chairs, Settles, Pews, Forms, Stools, and Seats generally. 39 possible to any one who has not practised it from his earliest boyhood, and there- fore not often attainable by Europeans or Americans of the highest culture. This, as the monuments still witness, was the usual mode amongst the body of the people in ancient Egypt. Yet, as the same monuments equally attest, the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with chairs, their sitting gods being constantly depicted upon chair-thrones. Their tombs and temples also demon- strate that the richer classes were ac- customed to easy-chairs. The common people are represented either squatting, or sitting cross-legged, on the ground. That wonderful people led, and still lead, the world in many important points ; but their gods, although they sat a little more comfortably than our citizens, sat indeed in the same general way ; and must occasionally have had the back- ache. The most hasty reference to that beautiful, clear, conscientious and ex- haustive work, the " Manners and Cus- toms of the Ancient Egyptians," by Sir J. Gardiner Wilkinson,* will show their elegant regal fauteuils, or faldistories, painted in the Tombs of the Kings, elaborately carved and colored, and light and strong in make. Even long before the time of the patriarch Jo- seph, synchronous with the reign of Osirtasen I., about B. C. HOO, the Egyptian carpenters and cabinet-makers had reached such perfection in method and fitting as to do awav with the lea- braces, depending upon the legs alone for support and security. Their usual height of seat was about the same as at present, namely: the average human knee-joint, although thej' had some very low, and others with an inclination of the seat, like modern kangaroo chairs. These being in profile with perhaps a relieved edge, rather in the fashion of a low arm and a forward side-curve of the Edition, London. back conjoined, we cannot tell certainly the exact inclination of seat and back ; but there is a very close approximation to the experimental improved form here- in advocated. See 1st Series, Vol. II, pages 195 and 382 ; also Vol. Ill, p. 110. It is a very frequent practice among chair-makers to depi'ess the back part of the seat slightly. So far, good. We find, by instant measurement, however, that an apparently very comfortable-looking, hard-wood frame, cane-bottomed chair has the seat of the same height from the floor, front and back, namely, 1 H inches. Unless as a special piece of furniture for an individual of over six feet in stature, 18^ inches distance from the floor of the upper part of the seat in front would seem to be the extreme limit of height. Close observation of the chairs in rooms where there are many sewing-girls shows that, as a rule, the occupants prefer seats of not exceeding 14 or even 13 inches from the floor, the legs of chairs and stools being invariabty found sawn off, so as to reduce their seats to some point between the heights just designated. It might be supposed that this arises from the comparative less average tallness of woman than of man ; but it so happens that average-sized men receive quite the same degree of increased satisfaction from these razeed chairs as the women do. The true reasons are these: In the
 * 1st and 2d Series in 6 vols., S vo., 1S37 to 1S42, 1st